PESHAWAR, Jan 6: As many as two barber shops and three video CD centres were blown up while a watchman there was shot at early Sunday morning in two separate incidents in the outskirts of the city.

The first bomb explosion destroyed a barber shop and a video shop in the Sheikh Mohammadi village.

Another explosion in the Mashogagar village destroyed two video CD centres, a barber shop and a general store. The saboteurs were believed to be Taliban. The watchman of the bazaar, Sher Zada, was also shot at by the militants. He was taken to the Lady Reading Hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries.

A police official said that the militants had earlier sent threats to the owners of the video CD shops to stop selling CDs as the business, according to the militants, was ‘forbidden’ in Islam.

The same threats were sent to the barbers to avoid shaving off beards of the customers or shops would be blown up.